Endless night
by Chiara Cadrich
Summary: At the deepest of the long dark night, the real test is solitary. My participation in the Teitho! contest of April 2016 "Waiting", where it tied for second.
**Endless night**

.oOo.

 _At the sign of the Prancing Poney, Sept. 29_ _th_ _3018 TA_

Sam had flatly refused to swallow Strider's infusion.

The ranger's look, stealthy and worrying, inspired distrust, despite Gandalf's letter.

Yet, when Frodo, bewildered, had pretended to put his lips to it, Sam had confiscated his cup to taste the brew before his master.

Under chamomile and verbena, he had noticed valerian scents, perhaps hops. But before he had completed his suspicious analysis, his cronies had already drunk half of the kettle.

Muttering to himself, Sam had taken a blanket and wedged in a chair at his master's bedside. Anyway, he could not sleep in this room, on the second floor of the Prancing Pony. What an idea! Only Big Folk could cope with such a perch! A respectable person like Mr. Baggins should not have agreed to leave the cozy suite on the basement, specially designed for hobbits. For what dark reason had this ranger insisted to get them away from postmaster Butterbur's quarters?

Determined to protect Frodo's sleeping, Sam was staring at the ranger who kept watch, sitting in a large chair near the hearth, his long booted legs crossed before him.

The minutes passed at the slow pace of the bursts Strider drew from his clay pipe. Then a glow illuminated his aquiline profile, lighting a sinister flame at the bottom of his predator pupils. Sam guessed that the impassive and swarthy mask of the ranger hid the trials of many human lives, and dark business in the wilderness.

Merry, Pippin and Frodo had quickly sunk into a dreamless sleep. Sam, won by an irresistible drowsiness, struggled to unseal his eyelids. Numb in the stillness of the night, he shivered and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

When he raised his tired eyes, Strider had silently stood up and was brandishing a poker.

Sam meant to scream, but he remained paralyzed. His whole small person screamed for betrayal - this brew had plunged them in a lethargic limbo, from where no hobbit would come back!

Addressing him an ambiguous smile, Strider crouched, revived the embers, and added a log in the fireplace. As in a deaf and dumb dream, helpless Sam felt transported to his bed by the jeering ranger.

Then in a slow silence, Strider checked the locked door, took a look through the shutters' openings, into the chasm of the night, and quietly returned to his chair, like a perpetrator biding his time.

Sam's spirit struggled again and again, as his body abdicated any hint of rebellion. He heard the ranger humming haunting couplets, while a severe cold was seeping into the room. Then, the awareness of the humble gardener dozed, leaving him at the ranger's mercy.

.oOo.

Aragorn had been struggling to convince the petty band of careless hobbits, they had little choice but to admit him as a guide. Even after Gandalf's letter, miraculously rediscovered by this idiot Butterbur, Sam kept a suspicious and hostile attitude towards him.

The enemy watched the roads and had intelligence, here in Bree. The inn was spied on, and Merry had narrowly escaped his attackers. So Aragorn had pressed the hobbits to change place, choosing a room less exposed than the basement.

"The Nazgûl, Gandalf had said, feel the presence of the living and the Ring, but fire and water disturb them." Therefore he had had every hearth lit on this floor, to confuse their pursuers, and fed the room's fire. But above all, he had for a time subtracted the Bearer from the Ring's spells, sending him with his friends in the regions of deep sleep, with neither dream nor temptation.

Sam, however in his sleep, was fidgeting on his chair. Aragorn laid him in bed, smiling despite himself, thinking of the loyal gardener smelling suspiciously his soporific tisane.

Standing in the thick silence, the Dunadan was listening. Aside from the hobbits' calm breath and Sam's worried mumbles, nothing disturbed the quiet of the night, which seemed to hold its breath.

Waiting settled, taking its ease like a jaded and shameless companion, obsessing the spirit with its silent whimper. At every moment, thoughts emerged from the shadows, disintegrating in a medley of images, repeating endlessly the doubts and hopes nourished by the Dunadan.

Aragorn sat back, pulling comforting puffs from his old clay pipe.

Defying night terrors, he intoned a lay, that Fornost's harpists once played on cold winter evenings, while the Arthedain were fighting against the Witch-king of Angmar.

Riding the verses, his soul wandered along the pipe-weed fumes, evoking his people's shelters, nestled in the heart of the Twilight Hills, and the long, dangerous and anonymous struggle of his kin, humbly performed to protect Eriador1. Aragorn's thoughts brought him back to his mother and her last desperate legacy, her hopes of renewal.

Master Elrond's deep voice predicted again that his daughter would not attempt on the grace of her life, for a lesser man than the King of reunited Arnor and Gondor:

"It is time for you to rise above your fathers, or abandon to oblivion the last remnants of Numenor!"

The ultimate test was coming at last. And the Ring of Power, within his reach by a strange twist of fate, was the key.

A wave of dread cold spread in the room. Hostile wills were assembling, surrounding the inn with their bitter lust. Alerted, the Dunadan got up, checked the door and rekindled the fire. Outside the inky night drenched the movements of his enemies, but he perceived the inextinguishable hatred of the attackers.

Several Nazgûls... Why did Gandalf, for the first time, fail him? What did his absence mean, if not the urgent need to tackle fate? Aragorn had sworn to protect the Ringbearer, but would this clumsy puppy Frodo prove worth the risk? What if the bearer succumbed - Should Aragorn assume the burden himself? Was it not safer to liberate Frodo from it now?

Aragorn's gaze lingered a moment on the four fellows, stumpy sleeping forms whose he felt responsible for - lovable creatures, plump and carefree... the Ringwraiths would make short of them... How could he protect them from these thirsty hounds at their heels? And how could he redeem Isildur's fault without facing his bane?

The inn's lower floor was invaded, inexorably. Malice crept into the house of men, chilling hearts and devouring hope. For long minutes, beset by doubt, the Dunadan remained motionless, all senses alert. A log crackled in the fireplace, pulling him from his altered state - he found himself sweating in the cold air, his leather glove clutching an imaginary ring at the end of his chain.

Unfreezing his fist, he recognized the elven brooch Evenstar had entrusted to him on the hill of Cerin Amroth. Doubt flew. Soft light lit up his face, like a beneficent and redeeming balm.

The Dunadan seized his sword and stood in front of the door. Pulled from its sheath, Narsil shone in the night with a fatal glow.

Suddenly hatred swept into the basement room, devastating but vain. A scream rent the air - an angry complaint, bearing to men a promise of death and a threat of endless torment. The duped enemy was calling for revenge.

But a rooster crowed in the distance. Terror loosened its grip. The assailant was retreating before dawn.

Aragorn reflected in himself - he had almost failed and claimed the Ring. Did he have luck or merit to refrain from this fault, and was that not already guilt?

At the deepest of the long dark night, the real test is solitary. But now the Dunadan no longer felt alone - a star was watching with him.

.oOo.

1 Region of middle earth, stretching from the Blue Mountains on the west, to the Misty Mountains on the east, and encompassing the Shire.


End file.
